Evaluation of an English Undergraduate Program

Abstract

 The quality of university education is a national concern. Inadvertently,
or by design as it may be, university education in Yemen is losing
credibility and relevance. Our certification is not much valued by
employers and our programs are delinked from professional
requirements, the result being internal defeat and external skepticism.
This paper offers an evaluation of one of the programs offered by Taiz
University. The current English undergraduate program at the Faculty of
Arts is about twenty one years old and there has been little attempt on the
part of faculty or administration to update the program content or revise
the program structure. The present evaluation attempt is both qualitative
and quantitative. The program is examined in detail in order to uncover
its strengths and weaknesses with regard to the program content and
program structure. This qualitative analysis is informed by the
researcher’s insider knowledge of the current program, and is backed up
by a quantitative analysis of an online survey targeting program
completers in the past three years, i.e. 2009 to 2012. The findings of the
qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the current program inform the
recommendations made for the program designers and program
executors.